Monday, November 1, 2010

its all about piazza san marco

So I guess the past week has been a bit boring, but thinking back on it, its actually been pretty good. Even though I haven't been that active I've started to really let myself find the beauty in the small things. Like walking home from school one day, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley came on my iPod right as I was walking across the bridge over the Grand Canal at sunset. I just stopped on the bridge and watched and listened to the whole song. It was pretty incredible for me. Everything about Venice is gorgeous I don't know. I sound really cheesy but whatever.

Like I said life has been pretty boring. I've pretty much just been going to school, coming home, eating dinner, and going to bed. Which is fine. Its not like it is required that I go out and do something every hour of every day. Although I have made myself a promise that from here on out I'm going to go out and see something everyday. Even if its just something small. I want to be active and be excited about the city. If I don't get my rear in gear I know I will regret it when I go home. I'm trying to be careful though because money is tight...really tight. I think if I am stingy I will be able to make it out of here with money left in my bank account! Lets all cross our fingers lol.

I've been spending a lot of time in Piazza San Marco lately. I have no idea why. I always find myself back there. I hate all the tourists, but ever since I went there with my teacher for class it has become something so amazing. I think I could sit outside the Basilica and just stare at the mosaics and the marble for hours. Its breathtaking. Its something you need to see at least once in your lifetime. The Piazza is also something that is good to use to find other places. For example, I wanted to find this one landmark and it was semi-close to San Marco, so I went to San Marco first and took it from there. I guess its just an excuse to walk through the Piazza just one more time :)

Saturday was the first day of the week that I actually wanted to get out and do stuff. I decided I should use my vaporetto pass all that I could because I decided not to renew it this month. I wanted to visit the cemetery because its its own separate island and I wanted to see what it was like. Little did I know that this weekend was the weekend that everyone goes to the cemetery. Ugh I felt bad walking around just to watch, while everyone else was there to visit their loved ones and clean things up. Needless to say I didn't stay long. The place was pretty cool though. Every grave really reflected the personality of the person, or at least what their family thought of them. The worst part of the island are the sections where you walk over the some of the graves. It looks like a sidewalk so I didn't realize I was doing it at first. A lot of people were doing it, but I felt wrong about it so I jumped down to the ground to walk.

After the cemetery I went to the church at Redentore. I bought this thing called a chorus pass that allows me entrance to like 14 churches for like 7 bucks. It was worth it to me. The church was beautiful. It was pretty simple compared to others that I've seen. I wanted to kind of make my time worth while so after I walked around and looked at the paintings and details and whatnot, I just sat in one of the pews for a while. It was peaceful and I could really example the details. After that I went to look at the Scala Contarini Bovolo. Sadly, they are closed to the public which means I could go inside, but they were breathtaking anyway.

Yesterday, I decided I would head to the movies. I wanted to see a movie that I had already seen in English so that I would know what was going on. I decided on Inception because I wanted to see it again. I had to go to Mestre to see it and there were only two theaters showing the film and only one of those had a showing at the time I wanted to go. Obviously with my luck, I wrote down the address to the one that didn't have a showing until 10. I got to the theater at 6. Ugh. I decided to buy a ticket to Despicable Me, which showed at 8, in addition to the Inception ticket. So to kill the 2 hours I just walked around. Despicable Me was in 3D and the glasses they give you are sooo intense. They are monstrous and very heavy. I wish I could have kept them, but they were really crazy about getting them back. Luckily I took a picture of myself in them. The movies were weird too because they have assigned seats. You can't just sit anywhere you want. Which is whatever just different. I actually understood a lot of Despicable Me and liked the movie a lot. Inception was a little more difficult, but I already knew what was happening so it didn't matter. I'm pretty much in love with Joseph Gordon Levitt in the movie. I finished at the movies at like 12:45 and after that I walked back to the train station. Upon arrival I found out there were no trains back to Venice until like 6 in the morning. Yea I was not spending the night in the train station. Luckily I overheard a family talking to a police officer asking how to get back to Venice and he gave them directions on the bus they could take. Hallelujah! The universe was definitely helping me out there. So I took the bus and got to bed around 3. Happy Halloween to me!